To accomplish the conquest of the Confederacy, the Northern plan called
for a huge two-pronged attack. Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, in command
of the southern prong, was assigned the task of destroying Gen. Joseph
E. Johnston’s Confederate Army of Tennessee, capturing Atlanta, marching
to the sea, and then turning north to effect a junction with Grant.
It was the upper arm of the movement which was directly concerned with
Richmond and Petersburg. This was composed of two armies: the Army of
the Potomac and the Army of the James. It was the task of these armies
to capture Richmond, crush the Army of Northern Virginia, and march
south toward Sherman.
The story of the Army of the James in the early phase of the offensive
can be briefly told. Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler was ordered to advance
upon Richmond from the southeast and threaten communications between the
Confederate capital and the Southern States. With some 40,000 Union
troops, the advance was begun. City Point, located at the junction of
the James and Appomattox Rivers and soon to be the supply center for the
attack on Petersburg, was captured on May 4, 1864. Within 2 weeks,
however, a numerically inferior Confederate force shut up the Army of
the James, “as if it had been in a bottle strongly corked,” in Bermuda
Hundred, a loop formed by the winding James and Appomattox Rivers. Here
Butler waited, while north of him the Army of the Potomac and the Army
of Northern Virginia engaged in a series of bloody battles.
The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5-7, 1864, began what proved to be the
start of the final campaign against the Army of Northern Virginia. Here
Meade’s Army of the Potomac, numbering approximately 118,000 troops,
fought the Confederate defenders of Richmond. Lee had about 62,000 men
with him, while an additional 30,000 under Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard held
the Richmond-Petersburg area. The battle resulted in a fearful loss of
men on both sides, although the armies remained intact. This was
followed by a series of fierce engagements around Spotsylvania Court
House from May 8 to 21.
Failing to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia in these battles, Grant
moved the Army of the Potomac to the east of Richmond. It was his hope
that he would outflank the Confederate defenders by persistent night
marches. Lee was not to be so easily outguessed, however. After minor
battles at the North Anna River (May 23) and Totopotomoy Creek (May 29),
Grant arrived at Cold Harbor, about 8 miles northeast of Richmond, but
Lee’s army still stood between him and that city. On June 3, 2 days
after he arrived at Cold Harbor, Grant ordered a direct frontal assault
against the Confederate lines. He was repulsed with heavy losses—about
7,000 men. “I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor
was ever made,” Grant would write many years later. By the end of the
first month of Grant’s campaign, both sides had suffered heavy
casualties, but the North’s ability to refill its depleted ranks was
greater than the South’s. Lee’s offensive strength had been sapped. From
the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House until the end of the war, except
for counterattacks and the lunge at Fort Stedman during the siege of
Petersburg, the Army of Northern Virginia was a defensive weapon only.
After Cold Harbor, Grant decided to turn quickly to the south of
Richmond and isolate the city and the defending troops by attacking
Petersburg and cutting the railroads that supplied them. Lee knew he
could not allow this to happen. “We must destroy this army of Grant’s
before he gets to James River,” he told one of his generals. “If he gets
there, it will become a siege, and then it will be a mere question of
time.”